


ruby in my chalice

by antikytheras



Category: Pocket Monsters: Sword & Shield | Pokemon Sword & Shield Versions
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Vampire, M/M, drunk conversations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:28:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23699281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antikytheras/pseuds/antikytheras
Summary: Two very drunk, very old vampires (attempt to) have a conversation, show off their drawing skills, and kiss. In that order.
Relationships: Dande | Leon/Kibana | Raihan
Comments: 5
Kudos: 95





	ruby in my chalice

There was something about red wine, Leon decided, that was incredibly intoxicating. While the alcohol content (a nice, hefty fourteen percent, according to the label on the alarmingly light bottle) may have had something to do with it, he thought that it was really the colour that went straight to his head— red like rubies, clean and crisp and clear, nothing like the awful muddied taste of blood.

He tried to ask his drinking companion what he thought of the wine. Raihan always had such sharp, keen observations. It was one of the only things that made immortality bearable for Leon; it was good to know that there was someone with a mouth smart _and_ pretty enough to keep him entertained until the universe plodded along to its inevitable heat death.

He wanted to say something vaguely intelligent. Instead, what came out of his mouth was, ‘So, get this— 1448, do you remember 1448?’

Raihan’s ashen skin was looking a little more lively than usual. ‘Oi— thought we had a agree— _an_ agree— _fuck modern English_ — said we weren’t gonna talk about old man Vlad anymore?’

‘No,’ Leon moaned, gripping the neck of the empty wine bottle with much more force than strictly necessary, ‘no, it’s important, it’s not— no more Dracula stories.’

Raihan levelled a suspicious glare at him. In the darkness of Leon’s apartment, his eyes were glowing bright blue. ‘S’okay,’ he grumbled, ‘you can talk about your Dracula stories if you want.’

‘No, no,’ Leon moaned again. ‘Swear on me mum.’

Raihan _giggled_ , and that’s when Leon realised, with a pang, that they were about twenty glass bottles rolling around underneath the other vampire’s prone body. ‘Did you have a mum?’

Leon stared at his wall. The wallpaper was very fetching. ‘Don’t remember.’

Raihan was silent for a long moment. Then, he replied, ‘Yeah. We must have come from _somewhere_ , right?’

‘How’s the wine?’ Leon asked, abruptly, before Raihan could launch into another awful existential philosophical metacog-something talk.

Raihan blinked. ‘S’good. Tastes a lot better than blood. Think it’s the shade o’ red.’

‘I was thinking the same thing,’ Leon confessed, sliding off his couch to join Raihan among the bottles on the floor. ‘Don’t like blood, all that much.’

The other vampire rolled over to give him some space. ‘Even fresh?’ Raihan asked quietly.

If he were sober, he would have known better than to reply. Instead, Leon buried his face into his rival’s neck. It was comfortingly cold. ‘Even fresh,’ he mumbled at last.

Raihan’s answering hum sent vibrations down his chest, in a mocking imitation of a single heartbeat.

‘You ever think about retiring?’

Leon snorted. It was a very unglamorous sound. ‘From being a vampire? I don’t really fancy burning to death under the sun, or in a tub of holy water. It’s always seemed like a painful way to go.’

‘Not like that.’ Raihan brought a hand over his eyes, presumably to ward off the incoming hangover. ‘I mean quitting Rose’s vampire association thing. Y’know, the whole organisation or whatever.’

Leon would later reflect that neither of them were as drunk as they would have liked to be. But for now, he only sighed and reached for another unopened bottle of wine. There was one under the couch. It must have rolled there some time tonight. ‘At this point, I just like having something to do.’ He was having trouble tearing the foil off the mouth of the bottle. ‘It’s just a nice added bonus that it’s something I’m good at.’

‘Yeah.’ Raihan reached over and peeled off the foil in a single, absentminded motion. ‘S’the same for me, really. Pretty much resigned myself to never beating you.’

Leon rolled his eyes. ‘I’m surprised you stuck to that, even after all these centuries.’

Raihan plucked the bottle out of his hands and took a long swig. ‘You’re the one makin’ it easy.’ The way he said it was too casual, which meant that he was deliberately trying to pass it off as idle conversation. ‘I mean, have you seen yourself? You look great in battle. Covered in all that blood, it’s—’

He let out a ragged breath and took another swig of the wine. About half of the bottle was gone at this point.

‘Well,’ Leon said, unable to help the grin crawling across his face, ‘I can’t see myself, can I?’

Before Raihan could flail around and spill any of the wine, Leon quickly snatched the bottle out of the drunk vampire’s hands.

‘I have an idea,’ Raihan declared, one hand pointing straight up into the air while he shot up into a sitting position. Leon thought that he might have heard his rival’s spine crack. ‘Stop drinking, it’s not that stupid an idea.’

Leon licked the last dregs of wine off his lips and put empty bottle number twenty-one down. ‘What is it?’

Raihan seemed to be having some trouble looking away from Leon’s mouth. ‘Listen,’ he said at last, ‘you got any paper? And a couple pens?’

‘Course I do, I work from home.’

Raihan grinned. ‘Go get ‘em, while I figure out which of these bottles still have wine in ‘em.’

Dutifully, Leon got to his feet and began picking his way through the mess of tripping hazards. His office was located down the hall from the living room, and because he usually made sure to drink _outside_ of his working hours, the space was neat and organised. He grabbed a few sheets of scrap paper from a tray and made an admirable attempt at fishing a couple of different coloured pens from the mug of stationery on his desk.

By the time he made it back to the living room, Raihan had managed to kick the offending empty bottles into the far corner of the room. Somehow, there were still three more bottles sparkling ruby red on his coffee table.

Raihan was seated on the rug in the exact same position Leon had left him. ‘Was the sun hidin’ in there or something?’

Leon shrugged. ‘Pens,’ he said, in what his drunk self considered a sagely voice. ‘Sometimes they try to become stakes. Very dangerous, pens. Ballpoints, especially.’

‘Good to have you back in one piece then,’ Raihan grinned. If Leon had a working stomach, it might have done a couple of flips. Unfortunately, his dead stomach was very much disinclined toward any sort of physical activity. ‘So, get this. I’ve got a brilliant idea.’

Leon liked his brilliant ideas. ‘Yeah?’

‘We’ve never seen ourselves, right?’ Raihan’s grin was getting wider. It was very charming, except that Leon had a niggling suspicion that if it started getting _too_ wide, it’d look a little predatory. Too-sharp-teeth, and too many.

‘Mirrors,’ Leon said woefully, ‘what did we ever do to them?’

‘Nothing, they just don’t agree with us on a metaphysical level.’ Raihan was using big words, which meant that he wasn’t really drunk at all, that lying bastard. ‘Okay, but listen— Leon, stop drinking for _one second_ , _will you_ — Okay, okay, get this.’

Leon let his rival take the bottle away from him. ‘Uhuh?’

‘You’ve seen me, right?’

What kind of question was that? ‘Course I have.’

Raihan was holding up a finger like an enthusiastic greenhorn professor attempting to explain quantum mechanics to a completely uninterested class of undergraduate students. ‘And I’ve seen you.’

Leon tried to sneak a mouthful of wine, and Raihan let him. Once he was done devouring the red essence, he removed the glass bottle from his lips. ‘And I’ve seen you seeing me.’

Raihan was smiling wryly, which meant that it may have been the wrong answer scientifically, but it had scored him plenty of brownie points with his nerdy professor. Maybe he could convince him to raise his D. To a passing score. Extra credit, sex joke, blah blah blah, he’s too giddy-drunk to form coherent thoughts right now. ‘Yeah, which means that if there’s anyone who’d be able to draw me, it’s you, right? And vice versa.’

Oh, so the bastard was sober enough to speak _Latin_. He’d probably gotten all the alcohol out of his system while Leon had been fighting his ballpoint pens.

‘I guess,’ Leon mumbled. ‘I can’t draw, though.’

Raihan was already patting the seat next to him. ‘Me neither, but this should be fun.’

After an hour, they discovered that they each had the art skills of a toddler.

Leon squinted at Raihan’s paper. ‘How come I have three eyes?’

‘That’s your frown line,’ Raihan explained patiently. ‘Cos you worry too much, dumbass.’

‘Oh.’ Leon chewed at his bottom lip. ‘Did you like the fang I gave you? I thought it was very important.’

‘I did.’ Raihan nodded. ‘Very important. And for that alone, I think you deserve the last bottle.’

Leon was drunk enough to close his eyes while he smiled. ‘Really?’

Apparently, Raihan was drunk enough to lean in and press their lips together. For a long moment, Leon tasted wine and blood mixed with something ancient and abhorrent, yet achingly sweet in familiarity. It was the same abomination that purred inside his own still, dead heart, and it was so-very-happy to finally sate its hunger for being known, in its aching, bloodied entirety, by the only other creature in the world whom it could possibly stand eternity with.

(And who could even stand the _thought_ of eternity with him, with nothing but a forlorn sigh and a smile playing at the corners of his lips.)

Raihan began to pull away, but Leon quickly grabbed the front of his shirt to kiss him again. It was nice not having to breathe. It was even nicer to feel Raihan’s hesitant hand settle on his upper thigh while the other came up to cup his cheek.

They were both cold-blooded creatures, but the parts of them that remembered being human were kind enough to cradle them both in imagined warmth and real contentment.

By the time Leon finally let Raihan pull away, his eyes were blazing unholy-bright-blue. ‘How drunk are you?’ he asked seriously.

‘Not drunk enough,’ Leon laughed. ‘We can talk about this tomorrow. After the hangover,’ he added with a wince.

Raihan took a deep breath. ‘Tomorrow, then,’ he said evenly.

There was still one last bottle on the table, but just for tonight, Leon decided to leave it be. He liked the warm, intoxicating allure of ruby-red, but if he were more honest with himself, he’d always preferred the hypnotism of bright-sapphire-blue anyway.

**Author's Note:**

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